10. “Man of La Mancha,” Cygnet Theatre:
In a year dominated by exciting new work, Cygnet artistic director Sean Murray — who has a long history with this bittersweet musical — directed and starred in a soulful and entirely affecting revival of the old favorite.
(Photo: Erika Beth Phillips, Sean Murray and Bryan Barbarin)— Daren Scott

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10. “Man of La Mancha,” Cygnet Theatre:
In a year dominated by exciting new work, Cygnet artistic director Sean Murray — who has a long history with this bittersweet musical — directed and starred in a soulful and entirely affecting revival of the old favorite.
(Photo: Erika Beth Phillips, Sean Murray and Bryan Barbarin)
/ Daren Scott

We live in a coldly rational age, where every task is tallied, every last hour is accounted for and (most galling of all) every critic is expected to have an explicable opinion about a play.

So if you ask about, say, Cygnet Theatre’s production of “Man of La Mancha,” I’m happy to try and tabulate the details of its expert acting, its spot-on singing, its clever sets, its ace band.

But I’d really rather just steal from Sancho Panza, the devoted sidekick to the musical’s starry-eyed, happily impractical knight Don Quixote.

Asked why he follows this hapless dreamer, Sancho (played with a lovable gusto by Bryan Barbarin) struggles to come up with a good reason. Then he sings, simply: I really like him.

So, Cygnet’s “Man of La Mancha”? I really like it.

Quixote, that champion of the power of imagination over the tyranny of the realistic, might appreciate an assessment that listens to the heart as much as the head.

And anyway, it’s not as if explanations (or apologies) are necessary for admiring and enjoying one of the more popular musicals of the past 50 years, even if “La Mancha” and its signature song “The Impossible Dream” risk being a little too familiar at this point.

The beauty of Cygnet’s lyrical staging begins with the way Sean Murray, the theater’s artistic director, so clearly loves and understands the material. No surprise, maybe: This is the third time Murray, who both directs and stars in the production, has played the central role in the 1965 work by writer Dale Wasserman, composer Mitch Leigh and lyricist Joe Darion.

Those turns in “La Mancha” span nearly 35 years, dating to Murray’s school days at Poway High. He dedicates this production to John Guth, a close friend who played Sancho in the director’s 2001 staging at North Coast Rep. (Guth died in 2006 at age 40.)

So much of “La Mancha” is wrapped up in the idea of mortality — both the failing of the body and the slow fading of high hopes and lofty ideals. But the piece is shot through with humor, too, and Murray captures it intuitively with his portrayal of the dented but undaunted Quixote, who forges ahead with a corkscrewed sword (a casualty of that famous duel with a windmill) and the call of a faulty trumpet.

“La Mancha” is structured as a play-within-a-play that draws on Miguel de Cervantes’ 17th-century novel “Don Quixote,” but it broadens the story to make Cervantes himself a character. Here, he’s a prisoner of the Inquisition who bargains to save a precious manuscript from fellow inmates by agreeing to tell a story.

Murray’s staging moves gracefully between the Quixote saga and the dungeon scenes, aided by Sean Fanning’s richly textured set design that includes a drawbridge-like ladder leading to the prisoners’ grim destiny above. (Michelle Caron lights the high doorway in a spookily blinding white.)

The show bursts with more strong performances, beginning with David Kirk Grant’s assured turn as the Governor (or inmate-in-chief) and the innkeeper. Grant also impresses mightily with his flamenco-accented guitar-playing, as he and Lucas Coleman duet on the show’s overture.

Erika Beth Phillips hits just the right notes of bruised hope and hard-earned grit as the put-upon Aldonza, whom Quixote puts upon a pedestal and re-christens Dulcinea. She also sings with gentle power on such numbers as “What Does He Want of Me?”

Jason Maddy is suitably imposing as the Duke and other characters; Kürt Norby is a comic gem as the impatient Padre; Katie Whalley has some knockout vocal moments as Antonia; and there’s good work by Bryan Banville, Christian Daly, Linda Libby, Justin Warren Martin and Nathan Riley in various roles.

Music director Shane Simmons leads a six-piece band that captures both the breezy romance and the sweep of the score, with especially effective horn flourishes (mixed crisply in Ross Goldman and Matt Lescault-Wood’s sound design). The unstoppable Jeanne Reith brings multilayered, whimsical detail to the costumes, and Colleen Kollar Smith choreographs with Iberian flair.

And if you’re not moved a little by Murray’s performance of “The Impossible Dream,” you just might have armor over your heart.